The Journey So Far

A chronological stroll thru the history of Broadway Musicals as they came to be recorded by Hollywood--the summation of a lifelong vocation, and a journey of self discovery. Equal parts cultural history, critique and personal memoir. Comingnext: Jersey Boys

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Hairspray

July 13,
2007, New Line 116 minutes

I've already confessed that my favorite year is 1962, tho
my unreliable memory of that time is undoubtedly buttressed by the record of
movies, recordings, photos and historical arcana available ever since. Perhaps
everything looked so golden, so stylish & modern to me then because it was
the year I became "woke"--viscerally aware of the world outside my
hermetically sealed home. I was, after all, nine. It was time to get
acculturated (much of this was covered in my entry on The Music Man.) So, naturally, any musical set in 1962
automatically cues my primal pleasure zone. Hairspray
was a particular balm--forty years after the fact, and less than a year after
the national psychic wound that was 9/11. On top of my own challenging traumas,
there was no better time for Hairspray
to arrive. I had, of course, seen John Waters 1988 pic--several times--and the
musical opportunities were obvious and many. And best of all, what could have
easily been another jukebox tuner, was given a fresh, original score that
recalled nothing less than the joyous bounce of Bye Bye Birdie. Who'd have thought it? Some might put Grease in the same category--but that
show dispensed with adults for the most part and propped up a razor thin
narrative with very simple, one-note declarative songs.

One of the few truly radical cineastes of the '70s, was
Baltimore's own John Waters, who saw his brand of comic outrage rise from the
extreme edges of the indie market to cult appreciation to the Hlwd--well,
"Off-Hlwd"-- mainstream. Much of this was in tandem with, and thanks
to, his muse: Divine--a 300 pound drag queen who expanded this ghetto genre
into uncharted territory (both funny & grotesque). Having achieved their
goals of making the trashiest, most offensive films possible, there was only
one way to go: up. While Divine ran off to make disco records and star in legit
Off-Bway (including plays by Dreamgirls
author, Tom Eyen: Women Behind Bars
and The Neon Woman) he periodically
returned whenever Waters had a new film financed. After the
almost-but-not-quite-respectable Polyester
(which was halfway to a Doris Day comedy, but did offer Scratch 'n' Sniff cards
for its gimmick: Odorama) Hairspray
was a jump into the American mainstream, albeit with some of Waters' trademark
subversive touches intact. Yet still fit for the whole family!

John Waters' characters have long been off-the-chart
outliers, whether psychotic killers, sexual maniacs or simply hopeless welfare
trash. But Edna Turnblad was devoid of any such excess, nor had an ounce of
glitter or glamour--this was the Real Housewives of Baltimore: fat, frumpy and
agoraphobic. It was the performance of Divine's career--and sadly, too, his
last film. And tho not quite the main role (he wished to play Tracy as well,
and was initially going to) he made enuf of a meal of it, that a musical
adaptation wouldn't even think of Edna as anything but a male drag role. And
who better for Bway than Harvey Fierstein? Of equal stature, both physically
and professionally, Fierstein's rep was made on Bway in his own material, Torch Song Trilogy (playing a drag
queen--tho mostly out of drag). He followed that up with the book for Jerry
Herman's La Cage Aux Folles;
softening its edges for a hetero mainstream Bway audience (which
to some was a sellout.) And tho
he turned into a semi-regular musical librettist (Legs Diamond, A Catered Affair, Newsies, Kinky Boots) he was only a
performer in Hairspray--whose book
was by the even more prolific scribe, Thomas Meehan (Annie, The Producers, Elf, Young Frankenstein, Bombay Dreams, Chaplin,
Rocky). Divine was shamelessly obese, but beginning with Fierstein, Ednas
have mostly been enlarged with padding. But the show's nucleus and true star is
Tracy Turnblad, the teenage "hair-hopper," whose enthusiasm is
matched by her weight. Unlike Edna, whose costume is part fat suit, Tracy
requires the real thing: a genuine fat girl. Ricki Lake began her career in
Waters' original (later slimming down to widen her options). Marissa Jaret
Winokur was a Bway find--a graceful-moving plus-size youth, with a Lesley
Gore-ish voice. She won the Tony (as did Fierstein--as male lead in a musical) but hasn't parlayed her success into other
Bway roles, unlike Kerry Butler who made Tracy's best friend, Penny Pingleton a
springboard to musical stardom: following up with leading roles in Xanadu, Rock of Ages, Catch Me if You Can
and as Audrey in the first Bway mounting of Little
Shop of Horrors. Matthew Morrison set the pattern for dreamboat Link Larkins;
and took his rank among Bway's leading men with A Light in the Piazza, South Pacific and Finding Neverland, building on his wider audience as the star
teacher on Fox TV's Glee. Laura Bell
Bundy was Amber Von Tussle soon to go Legally
Blonde. As her mother, Velma, Linda Hart (one of Bette Midler's former
Harlettes) made a meal of her "Miss Baltimore Crabs" mambo. And
Jackie Hoffman began her reign as our latter day Alice Pearce with several bits
here before heading off to Xanadu and
then as Grandmama in The Addams Family tuner.
It was a veritable New Faces of 2002. The century was still fresh and things
were looking up on The Great White Way.

With a Bway run just short of My Fair Lady's, I finally caught up to it in NY in June 2008, tho
I'd seen a road company in San Francisco in 2004. The show was irresistible on
stage, from its brisk staging to its bright pop colors and wall of
lights--again recalling the smooth professionalism of Gower Champion's Bye Bye Birdie. But Birdie was tinkered with and flattened by Hlwd, and chances were
much the same could happen to Hairspray.
Happily, the translation had fallen into the right hands: producers Craig Zadan
& Neil Meron whose Chicago
revived the Hlwd musical as Oscar bait and box office performer, and who were the
closest thing the aughts had to an Arthur Freed. (Tho more often than not they
brought tuners to TV: Bette Midler's Gypsy,
Cinderella, Annie, The Music Man). Rather than going to a major studio,
they set the movie up at New Line--which also produced Waters' original. For
director they chose Adam Shankman, a former dancer turned Hlwd choreographer
who'd graduated to helming mid-level studio comedies.

As with Chicago,
their casting was starry and mostly solid. The single carryover was Queen
Latifah, a natural for Motormouth Maybelle. Michelle Pfeiffer, edging into
middle-age, was a smart, if over-qualified pick for Velma von Tussle. Similarly,
Christopher Walken seems like an egregious upgrade for Wilbur, Tracy's dad.
Amanda Bynes and Brittany Snow were teen stars who brought their TVQ to the
table, and Zac Efron kept the objectified hunk component to Link Larkin intact.
No less dazzling is James Marsden (he of the greatest smile in the universe) as
show host, Corny Collins. And Alison Janney (who seems to never not be working) was given Penny's
mother, to chew whatever corner of the scenery she could find. Fresh faces were
found for Seaweed (Elijah Kelley) and Tracy (Nikki Blonsky), but the linchpin
for publicity was the now-established drag role of Edna. Fierstein wasn't known
outside NY, besides which his voice strains the ear. No, here was the choice
hook: an unexpected Hlwd star. So why not John Travolta? Adept at comedy as
well as musicals, here was a meal to make into a banquet. You can tell he's having
the time of his life letting loose--but is he any good? It's a strange
performance, padded in affectations as well as stuffing; his face so swollen as
to render eyes too close together for comfort. And tho it shouldn't be, the
best moments are when the iconic Travolta peeks thru the layers: a yodel riff
in "Welcome to the 60s"; a move out of Pulp Fiction; a quick pose from Saturday
Night Fever. But that's all a wink to the audience; he doesn't embody a
character, he's playacting in a fat suit. You never for a moment forget Edna is
Travolta, where even an undisguised Michelle Pfeiffer makes you believe she was
Miss Baltimore Crabs, for at least the length of a number.

The elephant in the room--if you'll excuse the
expression--is the show's take on obesity; a laudable defiance against shame
and prejudice toward the overweight while simultaneously playing it for laughs.
"I'm black & I'm proud" was a period mantra, but Motormouth Maybelle,
amends that to "Big (read, fat), Blonde (but black) and Beautiful"
(proud)--a blatant endorsement of caloric indulgence:

Bring on that pecan pie

Pour some sugar on it, Sugar,

Don't be shy

Scoop me up a mess

Of that chocolate swirl

Don't be stingy

I'm a growing girl

Alas, obesity is a serious health issue, and while it's
fine to extoll the equality of "all shapes and sizes," defending
gluttony while making fun of it is a screwy message. Fat may be beautiful, but
those whose initial fame came in part from their size, such as Ricki Lake, and
the Jennifers, Holliday and Hudson, later slimmed down, transforming their
images entirely. Divine did not, and died at 42 from an enlarged heart.
Watching a person of heft move with ease & grace is unexpectedly
eye-catching. (I might have first noticed this with either Jackie Gleason or
The Borden Twins who tickled the nation as Teensy & Weensy on I Love Lucy since 1955--with whom I was
so enraptured, I even painted them in oils many years ago.) Likewise, Tracy is
a stand out on the dance floor. The girl can move--the part requires it. And
whether Lake, Winokur or Nikki Blonsky, there's no denying a fleshy girl her
natural due. Divine didn't dance, but Edna didn't either. That is until the
pic, which of course capitalizes on Big John's moves. But there's no
authenticity in Edna's "body"--it's transparently Travolta sashaying
under all that stuffing. Good for a gag on Saturday
Night Live, perhaps, but giving credence to Ethan Mordden's dismissal of
the musical as clever, stupid junk--a latter-day "George Abbott show"
(i.e. Pajama Game) but without a
quality score. I certainly don't agree (about the score, at least); as part of
the first wave of Musical Comedy resurgence in the 2000's, Marc Shaiman &
Scott Wittman's score delivers just what's needed--and more so than Brooks' The Producers, makes for a sonic house
party.

So, Travolta isn't quite right yet he's still eminently
watchable. But if not him, who? Maybe Richard Gere--or is he too contained?
Johnny Depp--too surrealistic; Alec Baldwin? John Lithgow? Not so obvious a
choice, is it? Christopher Walken was an unusual pick for Wilbur, but he brings
a welcome goofiness to the role contrary to his trademark intensity. Queen
Latifah could play Maybelle in her sleep, and she's always fine company but
that's nothing new here. It's Michelle Pfeiffer who adds the most to what's
primarily a cardboard villain, making her spotlight number, "Miss
Baltimore Crabs" better than anyone could expect (with some flashback
scenes to her teenage glory). She looks magnificent in the era's styles; her
hair a series of wind-blown sculptures; her clothes suitable for Jackie
Kennedy. As her daughter, Amber, Brittany Snow hasn't the skill to add any
shades to her nonstop petulance. That's in stark contrast to Amanda Bynes'
Penny, whose expressions go a long way to filling in a character. Tho she's
mostly sidelined, her subtle, but committed underplaying rewards those who pay
attention. As her fanatical mother, Prudy, Allison Janney throws herself into
John Waters mode and crazily overacts--if appropriately so. As does Jerry
Stiller as a truly creepy Mr. Pinky (of Pinky's Hefty Hideway--plus-size
fashion shop.) Zac Efron was still sporting baby fat in his dreamy face, yet
his future hunk-status was obvious. But I've nothing much to say of Nikki
Blonsky's Tracy; she gets the requisite points across, sings well, dances okay,
but doesn't shine like the star she's meant to be. On the other hand, Elijah
Kelley's Seaweed (great name, that), exhibits enuf resemblance and charisma to
demand the lead in any future Sammy Davis Jr. bio. And most prominent among the
chorus boys--er, teenage students--is Curtis Holbrook as Brad, who'd already
joined the ranks of Buzz Miller, John Mineo, Scott Wise, Robert Wersinger, Sean
Hingston and Jay Armstrong Johnson as my fantasy ensemble. Between James
Marsden's smile, Michelle Pfeiffer's coif & couture, and Zac Efron's
permanent curl, the film twinkles with plenty of eye candy.

The movie avoids the clever "overhead" shot that
Jack O'Brien's stage scene opened on, looking down on Baltimore instead of
Tracy, before reaching her bedroom. The infectious beat of "Good Morning,
Baltimore" carries on thru Tracy's route from bed to school; hitching a
ride on--not in the cab of--a garbage
truck; a nod to the story's trashy badge of honor. (John Waters makes a quick
cameo as the flasher.) Brief moments in class show Tracy's impatience until 4
o'clock and the Corny Collins Show broadcast--and with James Marsden flashing
those pearly whites and a room full of sharply dressed 1962 teens (boys in
jackets & skinny ties; the girl's dresses twirling like toy tops) jumpin'
& jivin'--I have no trouble believing Tracy & Penny's keen interest,
for I could easily share it. Shankman wisely retains a good many scenes from
the dance show--which paired with Shaiman's tunes, makes for some joyful noise.
The movie dispenses with "Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now," altho
split-screen film is well suited for the song's tryptich approach. "I Can
Hear the Bells" benefits from roaming in numerous locations as a visualized
fantasy. "Welcome to the 60s" builds into a giddy production number,
complete with animated billboards and a fireworks climax, but might as well be
another fantasy. "Run and Tell That" remains earthbound, but it meets
its title and then some. I'm afraid I find "Big, Blonde &
Beautiful" a chore to listen to, tho Queen Latifah does all she can with
the barrelhouse tune, which begs the question of who she's enabling. The song
makes a curious reprise for Velma in attempting to seduce Wilbur.
Easy-listening is the best description of "You're Timeless to Me," an
"adult" number that's intentionally meant to evoke the great
songwriting era before rock; but the song is sadly pedestrian with lame jokey
lyrics: "You're like a stinky old cheese, babe--" to which Edna
recoils: what? "--Just getting
riper with age." And so on. But "Without Love" is a real
knockout, a rousing quartet that builds and builds to a sensational climax that
takes a sudden left turn in the final bars and ends in a gasp! The musical's
eleven o'clock number, "You Can't Stop the Beat," is a song I'm taxed
to find a comparison to. It's a shameless feel-good finale that brings all the
characters (even the evil Von Tussels--well, at least on stage) to their
helpless feet for a blissful--integrated!--climax; and on and on it goes,
spreading cheer and happy endings for all. Welcome to the '60s. Then credits
roll with a new Shaiman/Wittman tune, "Come So Far/Got So Far to Go"
that prolongs the house party atmosphere. The final track is "Mama, I'm a
Big Girl Now" split among the three Tracys: Lake, Winokur & Blonsky as
an aural easter egg. Virtually a whole score of tunes that can easily get
lodged in your head.

The screenplay was consigned to Leslie Dixon a mid-level
Hlwd writer who, 20 years earlier made big on a spec script that became a hit
for Bette Midler (Outrageous Fortune)
which led to other assignments, such as Overboard,
Mrs. Doubtfire, That Old Felling and
Pay It Forward. Dixon retained most of Hairspray's
original jokes (Edna's "occidental laundry") and dialogue ("....a whole lot of ugly
coming at you from a neverending parade of stupid") adding a few visual
gags as signifiers of our evolution (kids riding seat-belt-less in cars; the
teacher's lounge engulfed in cigarette smoke; pregnant women sipping martinis--not
to mention ubiquitous use of cancerous aerosol--the show's very title). Dixon
also simplified an already slender second half, dumping "The Big
Dollhouse" and any incarceration scenes (having Tracy locked up instead in
Prudy's bomb-shelter--which has, incongruously, a window! Just one of several
gaping lapses of logic. To wit: why would Prudy have the TV on at all, let
alone tuned to Corny Collins "race music," long enuf to see her
daughter, dancing with a Negro? Would yesterday's agoraphobe, Edna, really wear
a short, red beaded dress and jump into a teenage dance show as if she were
Ann-Margret? Why does the protest march start in the morning and two verses
later find itself a candlelight vigil in the darkest hour of night? These and
other questionable choices (in design, editing and camerawork) first gave me
pause after the precision and brilliance of Dreamgirls;
but in the end--after several more viewings--it doesn't seem to matter as much
with this material. It joyfully entertains in a primal way. And carping about
details seems awfully petty.

Shankman's Hairspray
looks even better in comparison to the 2016 live TV presentation. Harvey
Fierstein was lured back to leave a record of his Edna, but 14 years on makes
him closer to Tracy's grandmother; and his performance looked rather rusty.
Jennifer Hudson was tapped for Maybelle, but what was the point now that she's
as slim as a model? Kristen Chenoweth was an obvious Velma von Tussel but
brought no subtlety to her villainy. Which put her more in line with the
full-on cartoonish approach taken by Martin Short (as Wilbur), Andrea Martin
(as Prudy) and Sean Hayes (as Mr. Pinky). But even here the show proves
indestructible; a new century's Bye Bye
Birdie. The movie nods to that '60s musical, having talent agents (Shaiman,
Wittman, Shankman & Ricki Lake) at Corny Collins' Miss Hairspray show
scouting for the 1963 Birdie pic.
While his 1988 original was somewhat of a reach to a broader audience, surely
John Waters never expected his baby--whose first title was White Lipstick--to evolve into a perennial crowd-pleaser, whether
in amateur, regional or professional stagings. On top of that, Hairspray proved the most successful
Bway musical on screen since Chicago,
grossing upwards of $119,000,000, as counter-programming to the now-ubiquitos
summer action or super-hero franchises. I saw it first on July 23rd--one of the
last times I rushed to the cinema.

Filmed entertainment and public accessibility had changed
so much by the mid-aughts that the traditional parameters were no longer valid.
The internet was flooded with endless arcana such as the website Bluegobo,
whose master had possession of rare video clips from Golden Age Bway musicals;
many of them from Ed Sullivan shows, broadcast once and unseen for decades--a
veritable treasure trove: Do Re Mi,
Flower Drum Song, Henry Sweet Henry (Ed praising tiny Alice!) This was just
the start of what would come to be a black market in Bway videos (legal and
not). By 2005 my lifelong moviegoing habit had reached extinction. Flatscreen
TVs with enormous monitors supplanted the need to venture out to increasingly
costly cinemas, with evermore annoying audiences. Even the most prestigious and
popular films were available for home viewing within months--altho those of
interest to me seemed to be shrinking every year. At the same time, the
proliferation of cable channels with their need for content made for a new,
unheralded Golden Age of television. 2007 was filled with Big Love, Rome, Flight of the Concords, Little Britain, Pushing
Daisies, Ugly Betty, The Office, among many others.

The same month Hairspray
hit the screens, a failing cable network (AMC--American Movie Channel, which
had decisively lost the battle for classic film prominence on cable to TCM)
unveiled its initial original program, which being set in New York and starting
in 1960 was of particular catnip to me. The creation of writer Matthew Weiner, Mad Men turned out better than I could
imagine, becoming over 8 years and 92 episodes, what I truly consider The Great
American Novel. Using an advertising agency as a mirror of midcentury culture,
hypocrisy and morality, the show was painstakingly authentic in look, design,
music, language and social conventions. And tho much of the latter were now painfully
repressive and happily gone--the cultural explosion of the period has me
forever pining for those carefree years of civil-rights riots and Cold War
hysteria, so long as big-finned Cadillacs, girls in taffeta dresses, Roadshow
Cinerama epics and Bway musicals are just the tip of a modern renaissance
iceberg. Mad Men would traverse the
entire decade--occasionally referencing various Bway hits. (But Weiner seemed
to deliberately avoid mention of How to
Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, even tho--or perhaps
because--Robert Morse was Mad Men's
senior partner. What's wrong with a sly inside reference?) Mad Men wrapped after 7 flawless seasons leaving its characters on
the doorstep of the '70s. But I knew by the second season, which was set--you knew
it was coming--in 1962, that this was destined to be my all-time favorite
television program. Hairspray doesn't
qualify or aspire to such lofty status, but there's no denying its pleasures
are rock solid and undiminished with age.

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About this Blog

At the intersection of Broadway and Hollywood,

the Musical has been my lifelong touchstone. How did this happen? What does it mean? Herewith an analysis of my own"glass menagerie;" a Proustian trail of memory and perhaps a final summation of my thoughts and feelings on this unrelenting vocation.

About Me

A man on the verge of a musical breakdown. Why did I do it? What did it get me? Scrapbooks full of me in the background: New York, Hollywood, San Francisco. Palm Springs. This time, boys, I'm takin' the bows.